1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus.
2. Related Art
In the field of facsimile apparatuses that prints out facsimile data (hereinafter, the term “facsimile” may be expressed as “FAX” occasionally) received from outside via a communication network, printing speed of the apparatus has been upgraded so much that these days the printing speed is generally faster than receiving speed of the FAX data. For this reason, some facsimile apparatuses have a function of intermittent printing executed when receiving the FAX data corresponding to a plurality of pages. Such facsimile apparatuses are typically configured to: start a printing action upon receiving the data corresponding to one page; suspend the printing action upon completing the printing of the page and waiting for completion of receipt of the next page, and restart the printing action upon receiving the data corresponding to the next page. When such intermittent printing is performed, the operating noise causes uncomfortable sensation in persons around the facsimile apparatus, and besides the discomfort of the noise is increased because of the starting and stopping actions repeated at short intervals.
To alleviate such a problem, for example Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. HEI 11-205526 (hereinafter, referred to as '526 publication) proposes storing the FAX data in a memory when receiving the data corresponding to a plurality of pages, and starting to print out the FAX data either upon full receipt of the FAX data including all the pages, or when the memory region is fully occupied by the data being received. Such printing mode allows successively printing the FAX data for a plurality of pages, thus reducing the number of times of starting and stopping the printing action.
According to the printing mode proposed in '526 publication, however, once the printing action is started as the memory region is fully occupied during the receipt of the FAX data, the printing action is continued until the FAX data stored in the memory is cleared firstly. Thereafter, the printing action is started and stopped each time the FAX data for one page is received. Accordingly, '526 publication does not provide a satisfactory solution for the problem in the intermittent printing.